First Baptist Church

In his book How the Left Swiftboated America: The Liberal Media Conspiracy to Make you Think George Bush was the Worst President in History, author John Gibson gives in-depth analysis revealing the lengths the media went to so show bias against the sitting president of the United States over the entirety of his eight years in office.

Ninety percent of the media (newspaper and television journalists) in the United States, are by their own admission, liberal leaning and identify themselves as Democratic in their party affiliation. That alone should tell us that the news we receive is going to have a bias slant even despite their best efforts to be fair. However, increasingly little effort is made to be fair. Journalists seek to please and impress other journalists more than getting the story right.

Gibson shows how the media and the Democratic Party never got over their sour feelings coming out of the 2000 Presidential election fiasco where the Supreme Court ultimately ruled in a 5 – 4 split decision that George W. Bush defeated Albert Gore in the state of Florida, subsequently awarding the presidency to Bush.

Many saw Bush as illegitimately put in office by the Supreme Court. They maintained a strong belief for the next four years that he could be easily defeated, especially in light of an only marginally strong economy and in light of our involvement in two wars, one of which (Iraq) they saw as completely illegitimate. They coined the tag line, which stuck to the president like glue – “Bush lied; people died.” Even though a number of other country’s (U.S. allies) reviewed and believed the same intelligence as we were privy to which said Saddam Hussein did posses Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD’s) it was not good enough. Keep in mind, that Hussein himself had bragged for years about possessing such weaponry, seeing it as essential to keep his enemies in the Middle East at bay. Further, he repeatedly failed to comply with U.N. weapons inspectors. They never let Bush live down the speech from the aircraft carrier with the big “Mission Accomplished” banner in the background. Truly the war was not over, however the key phase of overthrowing the Hussein government was indeed accomplished. Ultimately a highly controversial troop surge led to the securing of Iraq, which liberals quietly seethed about, but could do nothing to change reality.

Some seem to think, as Gibson writes on page 50 that “. . . the choices a president makes are always between ‘bad’ and ‘good,’ while in reality the choice is often between ‘bad’ and ‘worse.’” The left, for some reason, came to defend Islam, and in many cases even the most extreme elements of its belief system. It debunked any measure of racial profiling as young men of Middle Eastern descent with turbans on their head breezed through airport security while 78 year old American women were frisked and hassled by security agents because they had one ounce too much shampoo in their carry-on bag! “Political Correctness” prevented us from really knowing how to deal with these problems, so it must be the President’s fault, after all he is stupid and Dick Cheney is heartless and has blood in his teeth – right? That sentiment was quickly picked up by the liberal media and in a short time became part of Americana. It was proliferated further by influential people such as John Stewart and Bill Maher, and the docket of late-night comedians.

The media convinced America that we were inhumanely treating prisoners at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as other places around the world. “Water-boarding” and “enhanced interrogation technique” became household words. Liberals had been stunned on September 11, 2001 because prior to that they believed evil did not exist in the world to that degree, except perhaps in the Republican Party! They scrambled to figure out how to deal with it. Over the next few years it slowly developed into this idea that America itself was actually to blame, at least in part, for this insidious evil in the world. These terrorists were simply misunderstood and that Islam was not bad but for only a few nuts.

There was even talk that we had provoked this war in the first place, and somehow brought it upon ourselves! Suddenly, these people so evil that they were literally willing to blow up themselves along with innocent men, women, and children were worthy to be spared enhanced interrogation methods, even if its continuation meant saving American lives. These thugs were not American citizens but were instead enemy combatants trying to kill and maim as many Americans as possible. The fact that we did not brutally torture and kill them is grace on the part of our country. They deserve no better treatment than how they have treated others, according to the standards of justice. But, the left would have us believe that what we were doing was inhumane and, no wonder the rest of the world hated us, especially the European socialists whom we so desperately wanted to like us for some reason. In essence, although they would not state it quite so brashly, Sept. 11, 2001 was our own fault!

Shortly after the 2004 election, there were less attacks by the heavily left-leaning media over policy issues, and increasingly they turned to personal attacks against Mr. Bush and his administration. When arguing policy failed and Bush was re-elected, rather than admitting they might have been wrong, they began a new strategy of making incessant, deep, and personal attacks upon those whom they do not like. Rather than arguing based on the issues, they went after the individual. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney became favorite targets of the media. They could do nothing right. Uninformed Americans were playing right into the hands of the media. After all, we live in a culture where, sadly, as Gibson points out, “The number of people who identify with [John] Stewart’s The Daily Show as their primary news source is shocking – more men between 18 and 34 than any other newscast.” John Stewart is a committed and unapologetic liberal who openly supported Obama and vehemently dogged Bush for the entirety of his time in office. Apparently their top demographic of males 18 – 34 looked no where beyond their favorite comedy show to get their news. A travesty indeed!

Bush was blamed for hurricane Katrina in 2005, even though even a minor investigation of the facts shows that the blame should go about a thousand places before getting to the president. Why did the New Orleans residents not evacuate as they were told, what about the mayor, Ray Nagin and the governor of Louisiana, and first-responders. FEMA, or any other federal agency is not designed to act as a first responder. They exist to give longer-term relief in a crisis situation. For some reason, first responders dropped the ball, in helping those who should have long since been out of the city, but for some reason this was the fault of the President of the United States? Bush, acting as a true gentleman, publically said he took full responsibility for the situation. Almost always, a person gains respect for taking responsibility in such fashion, but in the case of hurricane Katrina, the media took that as an admission of guilt! Any half-wit would know that the President’s level of personal responsibility, in this situation, was virtually none! Notice how things have changed since President Reagan made a similar statement, taking responsibility for Iran-Contra in 1987. His forth-rightness was praised at the time and is still admired. When Bush takes responsibility for the hurricane, he might as well have pled guilty in a court of law, ready to be dragged off in handcuffs.

Bush was ridiculed for his faith, even though other presidents were even more men of faith than he was, he was incessantly made fun of for his Texas swagger and confidence and cowboy style of justice. His intellect was maligned day after day by comedians, political pundits, and even the anchors of the evening newscasts. Even though Mr. Bush was and remains in the very top tier of the most successful Americans in history educationally, financially, and politically he was ridiculed as though he should have stared in the movie Deliverance! There is no living American today who can brag of his accomplishments. Even the most successful people alive today have not accomplished what he has in the triad of education, finances, and politics and I would welcome anyone trying to show me differently. It has been said, life is full of irony. I believe the personal criticism of President Bush is one of the most ironic phenomena of history. I am fine with anyone sharing their opinions on policy – that is what we do as Americans but when we can no longer use words like “fat,” “retarded,” “negro,” and now even “terrorist” without fear of consequences from the “speech” police then many of our guaranteed freedoms as Americans have ceased to exist.

People have criticized Presidents and other politicians as long as they have been in existence, however there has generally always been a certain respect for the office itself. During the years of the Bush administration we saw that erode sharply at the hands of the media. The decline has been taking place for some time, but is certainly snowballed between 2001 and 2009.

The media’s job is to ask tough questions of all politicians and dig for the real story. They are to be tough on all political parties while also being fair. Their integrity as journalists rests in getting a story write, not in swaying public opinion. They are reporters not policy makers. All anyone is asking for is fairness. America is a right-of-center country. It has voted Republican in 7 out of the last 11 presidential elections, yet we are served by a media which supported Barak Obama approximately 9 to 1 in 2008. Can they be fair? I do not think they can. We are under a massive assault by the media these days. It is hard to know the truth because the same story may be quite different from paper to paper or network to network. Also, a big story on one network is not covered at all on another. We are in those days which scripture described as being ones where men would be “lovers of themselves.” There is no commitment to THE truth anymore, only commitment to MY truth! A nation which hides from THE truth is a nation in trouble!

In Christ,

Pastor Allen Raynor